Here are the first three chapters of Lily, Unleashed for your reading enjoyment. You can buy the ebook for just 99 CENTS by clicking
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Chapter One

“A Bellow For Help”

Me and Fuzzy Wally MacGee and the rest of P.A.W.S. had been in some sticky situations before, but none so perilous and sticky as the one in which we found ourselves currently in, covered in maple syrup and tied to stone tables with very sharp-looking scythes going back and forth over our necks, slowly lowering ever downward. The maple syrup, S.N.U.R.F.L.E.S. likely thought, would attract the red fire ants they had also arranged to be in the room with us. If, for some reason, there was a malfunction with the cogs and chains that were lowering the scythes, they figured that if our fate wasn’t meant that we would end up sliced and diced, there was always then the option that we would succumb to the stings of hundreds of fire ants and meet our demise that way.

How thoughtful of them to be like Boy Scouts, and always have a backup plan! But, I’m getting ahead of myself, putting the cart before the horse, as it were. You might well be asking yourselves: “How did a super heroine like myself and my gang of fellow animal detectives, P.A.W.S. (Private Army of Warrior Sleuths), get into such a predicament in the first place?”

Rather than calling you a bunch of exceedingly nosy people (I would never be that rude, no, not I), I will relate to you the circumstances that led up to our–um–sticky present situation in a case I like to call: The Case of the Scarlet SNURFLES. Why I choose to use that name for this case should become, as the great Sherlock Bones was fond of saying: “Elementary!” in short order, so let us proceed, Dear Readers, to the meat of the matter.

Just like Spider-Man, Bat-Man, Super Girl or the Flash, I have my own origin story to tell, and also the related tale (or should that be tail) of the origin of PAWS. Radioactivity, spider-bites, or a thirst for vengeance isn’t what made me a pterodactyl, though–to put it simply, in the words of Lady Gaga, I was just born that way. Well, I guess hatched would be a more accurate way of saying it, but you get the picture!

I live at 1611 Chickamunga St. in Centralia, Arkansas, home of the Centralia Fightin’ Musk Oxen, whose motto is: “We’re Brave and Powerful In Both Strength and Odor!” I’ve lived there all of my life, or at least, as long as I can remember, with my family. Who am I, you ask? Only the heroine of this story, that’s all, Lily (or Victoria) Elizabeth Quince, a mostly black with some white brindle-colored pterodactyl.

Among my other specialized mental gifts is my ability to cloud the minds of others, and make them see what I choose for them to see. That is why most people, most of the time, see me as a rather small black-and-white brindle terrier. It’s a helpful disguise, so folks don’t go running down the street in stark terror when they see me soaring and swooping down on nefarious bad guys to bring them to justice.

The family I live with, who believe (erroneously) that they are my owners, are nice, despite their quirks and sometimes eccentric behavior. They are the Quinces, a name that just so happens to rhyme with mince, one of my favorite pies! I allow them to have the run of the house, and they, in turn (and I suspect in thanks), provide me with dog food and water. I have a stomach of iron, so I can eat most anything, even something as disgusting as dog food, but I supplement my diet with the occasional cat, squirrel, armadillo, or eagle unlucky enough to cross my path. Hey, super heroines have to eat, too, you know.

Quentin Quintilius Quince, or Triple Q, is Celeste’s dad. He is a bit of a nut, but I get along with him, usually. I also am able to control his mind, so I can use his mouth and larynx to communicate with Triple Q’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Celeste Elizabeth Quince.

Celeste (again erroneously) believes she is my primary owner. That arrangement is, of course, really the other way around.

Anyway, it is thanks to Quentin’s brilliant inventive ideas (supplied secretly by me) that the Quinces are fabulously wealthy, though they don’t like to flaunt their wealth and are really very down-to-earth people–for humans! Quince’s Melon-Bottom Jeans made him a multimillionaire. They were a big hit on the dance floor, with air bag technology installed where it really counts–the rear, or bottom, of the jeans. Then, if “shortie,” ever got “real, real low,” so low she actually fell on the dance floor, no problem! She’d bounce right back up, and it’d look as if she’d done it on purpose! It’d only take a few quick pumps from the supplied bulb and discrete hose to re-inflate the air bag within the jeans, and get “shortie,” good to go for the next dance.

Triple Q’s millions got added to be yet more millions when he started up a nation-wide chain of Lumbar Support groups. It was an idea whose time had come, and which made Dr. Phil green with envy. Lumbar Support groups were for men who’d lost their spines and the end goal was for them to regain them again, so they could stand up for themselves. It’s so sweet to drink out of a diamond-encrusted water bowl!

Clare Clooney-Quince (distantly related to George Clooney) is the mom. She’s an environmentalist and wildlife behavioralist and believes in the value of homeopathic medicines, like treating headaches with tea made from willow bark, and using her own gel cap machine to make pills made from purple cone flowers, or Echinacea, to treat colds. She’s also an accomplished violinist, and cures many of her family’s (and the neighborhood’s) ills with the ancient science of acupuncture. Pine needles, I learned from her, are a good source of vitamin C, if you brew them in a cup of hot water. They’re not so great to just put in your mouth for a couple of minutes and suck on, though–I know this from personal experience. Blech!

Celeste Elizabeth Quince is an eighth grader attending Centralia Junior High. She is the only human who knows that I’m really not a terrier, but am a pterodactyl. She knows this because, although I have many, many animal friends and acquaintances, I often hang around the Quince’s house, as it’s the main base for PAWS, so if I didn’t talk to someone human, I’d probably feel a bit lonely. And, when I take over Quentin’s brain to talk to her, it’s a great way for the three of us to spend some quality time together and shoot the breeze. Now, it’s true that Triple Q doesn’t remember any of my parts of the conversation, and just believes that he’s going along with his daughter or humoring her, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him…much. Celeste likes to read, practice judo and aikido, play the clarinet, speed skate really fast down very gravelly hills, and her major dislikes include dogs peeing on her feet and crashing due to skating down gravelly hills too fast. I distinctly recall finding her under a rock, but she has the false memory I implanted in her brain of being driven by her mom to a puppy mill and choosing me because I was the “runt” of the litter. Me, the runt of the litter! That was a joke of mine, to make her believe that; runts don’t have twenty-foot wing spans!

The fourth member of our family is Celeste’s older brother, Dexter Walter Quince. He’s a nice guy, and I like him even though he tries to make me do things a dog might do, like chase after sticks and beg. He’s moved to a house with his girlfriend, Nicole Edison (whom I also like–she gives me yummy things I’m told aren’t good for me, like pepperoni pizza and chocolate chip cookies), so I don’t get to visit with them often, but they both come over occasionally. When we play Rock Band III, I love to sing the alto parts of every song–that is, when I’m not playing the drums.

Dexter loves to play video games, co-host web shows, and he’s the head chef at (and co-owner of, with Nicole) one of the Quince’s favorite restaurants, La Bella Notte, named after the restaurant from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. It’s got delicious Italian food, and it’s a place that’s great for families, and the meatballs are huge, but kind of spicy. It’s got five star and four fork reviews and I must say, for someone who used to primarily like only mac and cheese and chicken strips, his classes at the Cordon Bleu really paid off. They’re already scouting out locations for a second restaurant, this one for vegetarians on a budget, The Vegenomical Solution.

Oh, and also, they’ve recently opened up a bakery, warning customers of how rich and decadent their pies, cakes, and assorted pastries are with its very name: Eternity On Your Thighs. Their slogan, “A Second On Your Lips, an Eternity On Your Thighs,” is an apt one, indeed.

You may well be wondering how I met the rag-tag band of animals I gathered to form PAWS, and how my training made them into the dedicated tight-knit fighting force to be reckoned with that they eventually became. “Stranger Danger!” and “Be Ever Vigilant!” are the two maxims I required them to devote to memory right from the get-go. Without these two ever so meaningful phrases to spur them on in their duties, I doubt that all of the training in the world–yes, even my expert training–would have had much of an impact on their Play-Dough like minds.

The initial one I gathered into my fold (and to my bosom) was Fuzzy Wally MacGee. He lives three houses down from me, at 1617 Chickamunga St. To the clouded and boggled minds of humans, he appears to be a rather ugly Chinese Crested dog, with a lolling tongue and crossed eyes, and when he walks, it looks like he’s got a drunken gait, like he might have lapped up a bit too much Antifreeze. But, he’s actually a quite clever (though nowhere as clever as myself, of course) rhinoceros. Despite his ponderous size, he’s great at getting in and out of tight places, and because of his somewhat distracting appearance and behavior, he’s earned the position on PAWS as being the–um–Distractor of the team.

Lucy Marmoset Higgins is another vital member of PAWS. She’s a Great Dane/orangutan, a combination that’s hard to beat, you’ll have to admit. She lives at the end of a cul-de-sac on 1313 Dover. Because of her size, strength, and opposable thumbs, she’s crucial for jobs like cracking safes and hacking computers, and she’s often referred to as the “strong arm” of PAWS. Her “accidently” dropping banana peels on the floors of some of Centralia’s better establishments has led to breaks in several of our cases over the years, not to mention breaks in several people’s arms, legs, fingers, etc. Oh, well–it’s results that count, and she has definitely produced more results and breaks than you can shake a stick at.

Prince Alphonse Saed is the only member of royalty on PAW’s team. This fierce warrior and sleuth has the nose, perseverance, and instincts of a bloodhound, but he’s a miniature Dachsund to the eyes of humans, while the true reality of who he is, is quite different. He’s a tawny-coated Mountain Lion with razor-sharp claws. He’s quite good at chasing down Leprechauns (evil and otherwise), bankers, lawyers, and assorted other suspicious (and sometimes supposedly mythical) characters.

His specialties included being an expert at using Ninja weapons like nunchucks and throwing stars, and divining the future by reading crystal balls and Tarot cards. He’s helped make sure that the futures of countless criminals included lengthy stays behind bars. His friends call him Fonzie, or Fonz, for short, and just like the one from Happy Days, Saed is a chick magnet, though I have no trouble resisting him, as I am devoted to a “higher calling.”

That “higher calling,” is, of course, to my role as the leader of PAWS. It’s a difficult job, but someone has to do it, and that someone is me! I am very modest–modesty is one of the many qualities I excel at more than most, but I don’t like to toot my own horn about it–but it’s a lot of hard work making the neighborhood, town, state, country, and the world safe for animal-kind, oh, and I guess for human-kind, too. I’m literally on call 24/7, ready to jump into action and soar to wherever I’m needed at a moment’s notice.

Those are the times when my specially-made collar with the red-and-blue flashing light on top and my leather flight cap and goggles and siren come in handy the most. But, the constant pressure I feel and the energy I consume saving animals and people sure leave me feeling tired. I have tried to explain this to Celeste, but she for some strange reason has doubts about whether or not I’m being entirely truthful to her.

“Lily-Bear (that’s what Celeste insists on calling me, though I keep telling her I’m not a bear), why do you just like to lie around almost the entire day?”

“I don’t do that (I say, though the words come out of Triple Q’s mouth against his will). You don’t know me, chica. You don’t know where I’ve been!”

“Sure I do, Lily! You have been lying on top of me on my blanket, licking on it, acting like it’s your baby or something! You were only outside a couple of times today, to use the bathroom, and then you mostly just barked at the neighbors and people walking across the street!”

“Oh no you didn’t, girl! See, it only seems to you that I was outside for just a few minutes, but it was actually for three hours, and I was fighting the forces of SNURFLES all over the place. I then flew backwards around the Earth, and made time itself go backwards, so that I would be right where you left me in our backyard when you came out to get me. Oh, and also–I don’t bark, I roar, and it’s highly possible that the strangers I saw were really witting (or unwitting) agents of SNURFLES!”

“SNURFLES? What’s that supposed to be?”

“It’s not supposed to be anything! It’s what it is, which is an acronym like PAWS. SNURFLES stands for Super Nefarious Union of Rascals Formidably Linked in Everlasting Solidarity–don’t they teach you anything in school?””Yeah, important subjects like Math, Science, English, History–but I’ve never heard of SNURFLES before, because it doesn’t exist!”

“Yes, they do! How would you know, chica? Until last year, you didn’t even know that I could talk. I am keeping the neighborhood safe from strangers, and if you’d ever met them, you’d know that SNURFLES are some of the strangest strangers you’ll come across!”

“Hmm, hmm, what, what was that you’re talking to Lily about, Celeste?” Triple Q asked her, looking up from the book he’d been reading.

“You know that she doesn’t really talk back to you, right? And what’s all this about SNURFLES?”

“Lily does talk, dad! She’s been talking to me for awhile now, saying stuff about how she’s some superheroine or crime fighter, how she’s keeping the neighborhood and the world safe from strangers, how she turned back time by flying backward around the Earth very fast–”

“Like Superman, huh? But, how can she fly when she’s a dog?” Quentin asked.

“Yeah, like Superman, I guess, but she claims she’s not a dog, but a pterodactyl, and–”

“That’s just crazy–Lily looks nothing like a pterodactyl.”

“Well, not to us, but she says that’s because she has powers of mind control, and is ‘clouding and boggling’ our minds!”

“I haven’t heard her talking at all–maybe growling and wheezing now and then, like she might have asthma.”

“But, dad, you couldn’t hear her because she says she controls your mind, also, and uses you to communicate with me, by using your voice, but a higher version of it. You don’t remember because she has you under a kind of hypnosis or something!”

“Su-hure she does! Now, I’ve got a lot of reading to get to, and I want to finish this book so I can start another one. Maybe I’ll play Trivial Pursuit or a Wii game with you later, though, if you want,” Quentin said, and picked up the book he’d set down, opened to the page he was on, on the arm of his chair.

It was just two hours and twenty-two minutes later that one of my greatest fears happened, other than when Oprah announced that this was the final year of her show. Dr. Oz must surely be high up in the SNURFLES organization! If he even is a real doctor…I make it a rule never to trust a doctor who’s named after a Judy Garland movie. And that Dr. Phil–he’d probably have tried counseling Dorothy for falling asleep in the poppy fields, claiming that proves she has an “addictive personality.” They both bear watching, that’s for sure!

I got side-tracked for a second there, something that I very rarely do. It was two hours and twenty-two minutes later that I went into the backyard again, for the final time that night, and I heard the plaintive bellowing that other ears might have heard as barking, which let me know that Fuzzy Wally MacGee was in serious trouble and needed my help.

The problem is as I was answering him with a series of mighty roars, and was just getting prepared to launch myself into the air to fly to his assistance, I saw a black and white cat, and didn’t want a potential agent of SNURFLES so close to my house when I was about to leave on a mission of mercy to rescue a fellow member of PAWS. So, I proceeded to give chase to the offending feline, to teach it a lesson it wouldn’t soon forget.

Sadly, it taught me a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget, when the “cat” turned out to really be a skunk and it sprayed me right in the face before casually sauntering off. Triple Q, Celeste, and Clare were not amused (as, obviously, neither was I) when Triple Q brought me into the house shortly after, reeking of my misadventure with what could have been an ordinary cat in disguise with a squirt bottle of eau de skunk perfume, or could have been an ordinary skunk (let’s not quibble here about minor differences of opinion).

Some time later, after having had several baths, two with tomato juice, and none of which proved totally satisfactory in completely eliminating the malodorous odor (it stubbornly lingered for weeks, which made me very suspicious that this was not the work of an ordinary skunk, if you get my drift), I fell into a deep sleep, but it was one plagued with visions of poor Fuzzy Wally MacGee calling for me to help him, sad and forlorn because I failed in my number one priority in helping a fellow member of PAWS in need. I vowed it would never happen again.

Chapter Two

The Scarlet One

The next morning the sun rose as if nothing world-shattering had occurred the previous night. But, I knew better. The attack on my person so close to the sanctity of my home proved to be quite unnerving to me, and I was a bundle of nerves. I couldn’t let on to anyone else that I was so shook up, though, so I acted as if I was cool and calm, and as if nothing had happened. The first chance I had, when I got outside, I hailed Fuzzy to learn if he’d somehow managed to survive the night.

He answered me back that he had, but that he’d also had a run-in with the mysterious cat who was an agent of SNURFLES, and that he’d been trying to warn me to be on the look-out for it, to be–well–“Ever Vigilant.” How those words haunted me now, as if they’d come back to me mockingly to bite me on the rear like an angry flea thirsting for my life’s blood!

I resolved then and there to have an emergency mandatory meeting of PAWS at noon. I sent Fuzzy the message, and he commenced to relaying it to the other members of PAWS. We’d meet at the Centralia City Dog Park, where I knew the entire gang usually hung out on Sundays about that time. There was something in the air besides the scent of skunk, or the delicious odor of baking cakes, cookies, and pies coming to my oh so sensitive nose from the Eternity On Your Thighs baked goods shop a mile and a half away, and I was bound and determined to get to the bottom of it!

Like knights in shining armor of old, we dutifully meet at the dog park and discussed the events of the previous night and what to do about them. We were free to roam about at will, because here we were free to be ourselves, and not to be led around by the leashes of “Da Man.”

There was a pond there that reminded me very much of the English Channel, and my days on the Pterodactyl Olympic Swimming Team when I took a gold medal in the 100 meter Pterodactyl Paddle, a story best left for another day. I dove in for a refreshing dip before the meeting, and rolled in the grass afterward, trying to dry off, and shaking my head to get the water out of my ears. Now, instead of smelling of skunk, I smelled of skunk, tomato juice, and dirty pond water–almost like my old self once again, though I still had a ways to go.

Prince Alphonse Saed opened the meeting with his customary mountain lion “yowl,” signifying that he was calling for order. The other members of PAWS stopped their traditional ways of greeting each other by sniffing each other’s posteriors and they focused their attention forward to hear me address them.

“Members of PAWS, united we stand in our efforts–Lucy, I said stand!” Lucy was temporarily distracted, not by the odor nor antics of our Distractor, Fuzzy Wally MacGee, but by wanting to swing from the limbs of the nearest tree.

I said, “Get down from that tree, so I can continue–right, then–I say, united we stand in our efforts to fight the dangers of strangers and other criminal elements in our city and the entire world, especially the nefarious plots and schemes of SNURFLES!

“Which brings me to the main point of why I called this meeting today,” I continued, undaunted.

“Last night, as I was in the backyard, I heard the plaintive bellows of a rhinoceros in dire need of help. They were not the bellows of just any rhinoceros you might find at your ordinary zoo or circus or Africa or neighborhood or at the Centralia City Mall, shopping for rhinoceros sneakers or other accessories, indeed, no!

“They were the bellows of a fellow member of PAWS, who just so happens to be here today, namely Fuzzy Wally MacGee! Not only that, as if that weren’t enough of a reason to call this meeting–but as I was about to leap into the night sky to respond to his calls for help (at this point, all of the other members of PAWS shouted encouraging remarks like ‘Hear, hear!’ and ‘That’s the way to go!’ and ‘Spoken like a true friend!’), I was attacked, blind-sided you might accurately say, by a cat pretending to be a skunk, who assaulted me quite viciously and with malice aforethought, by squirting me in my face with a bottle of eau de skunk perfume.

“This resulted, as you can well imagine, in the entire Quince household being roused up and in my enduring the agony and humiliation of multiple baths! Needless to say (but I will, anyway), the worst part of it was I couldn’t go to the aid of our good friend, Fuzzy. It wasn’t until this very morning that I learned that he, also, had been subject to attack by the very same cat wielding a squirt bottle!

“Coincidence? I don’t think so–no, it had to have been the latest plot by SNURFLES, doubtless designed to incapacitate two of the members of PAWS at one time, so we’d be out of commission when the next leg of their plan commences! And, when will that be?” I asked, rhetorically.

It was then that I saw a brilliant flash of scarlet in the tree-tops, just for the barest second, then whatever it was that I saw vanished. But, it didn’t disappear before I started mightily roaring, which alerted the other members of PAWS to turn their heads and catch a glimpse of scarlet, as well. Lucy Marmoset Higgins hauled herself up onto a tree limb to give pursuit to the strange creature, but it sped off before she could swing for more than a couple of branches. She returned with disappointment plain on her face, but nobody could fault her for giving it her best effort.

My ferocious roaring unfortunately called attention to the humans who brought the other members of PAWS to the dog park that “the game was afoot,” as Sherlock Bones would say, and that there was criminal activity taking place right under their noses (and above their heads). I heard someone comment about the “beautiful nesting cardinals,” in the area, but I highly doubted that one of those was the source of the mysterious scarlet flash I saw in the treetops. There could be only one answer–that a scarlet-colored member of SNURFLES had been in our very midst, attempting to spy on our activities, no doubt alerted to our planned meeting by his feline partner-in-crime, the hit-and-run sprayer of eau de skunk.

But, I asked myself as I headed home, why scarlet? Two and two, I told myself; two and two. What’s two and two equal? What did the clues add up to? The answer must be that scarlet is the color of blood, and that SNURFLES had very deadly plans that meant they would possibly even try to assassinate myself or other members of PAWS. That was the true reason that the member of SNURFLES we all saw with our own eyes was clad in scarlet.

A cardinal? Pshaw, I say! I knew that this new phase in SNURFLES’ schemes meant that we would have to be even more vigilant than ever! Quite unlike my usual, non-confrontational, peaceful nature, for days after that meeting I would roar at perfect strangers, like the mailman, people going in and out of the church across the street, joggers, little old ladies, and little old lady joggers, their blue-colored hair bouncing up and down as they jogged hurriedly away when they heard me roar, Girl Scouts, and other disreputable door-to-door salespeople. Who knew, really, who could be a potential member of SNURFLES?

That was when packages started to be delivered to our door. Packages that were delivered by–you guessed it–people dressed in scarlet colored uniforms! The truck the delivery men came in was also scarlet, and painted on the side of it in big letters was the phrase:

SCARLET O’HAIR-A’S
DELIVERY SERVICE BEATS
BROWN
HANDS DOWN

You can probably imagine the roars of indignation that escaped my (already sore) throat whenever the deliverymen (if that’s what they were) brought packages to our door. There was notelling if they were perhaps members of a terrorist cell, which I believe are tiny, one-celled organisms with nasty attitudes, or if they were members of SNURFLES in disguise. If I was a betting pterodactyl, though, I’d say the latter. Sure, the packages they brought strangely coincided with orders for rare, collectible Goofy figurines that Clare bought to add to her burgeoning collection, but you know what they say about coincidences!

You do, don’t you? Everything is for a reason; there are no coincidences! Being knowledgeable of this obvious truism, I realized that the deliverymen’s bringing the collectible Goofy figurines was just a cover-up for their step-by-step plan to gain the Quince’s confidences so that they could then proceed to PHASE II of their scheme. All of the tiles were falling into place now, slowly revealing more and more of the BIG PICTURE.

Luckily, I wasn’t born yesterday, and I wasn’t taken in by their wiles and ploys like the Quinces seemed to be. I smelled something fishy one day, so, snorting and snarling, I ripped into the bubble wrap that one package contained, popping bubble after bubble with ferocious and gleeful abandon, because I knew that at long last I would discover underneath the bubble wrap the secret that I had been looking for! It was only after I’d popped all of the bubbles and stared deep down into the package that I realized that…it pains me to say it…there was nothing but yet another Goofy figurine within! The deliverymen must have tricked me by eating fish fillet sandwiches before arriving, to try to throw me off the track and discredit me!

Okay, I said to myself–this battle may go to you, SNURFLES, but the war has just begun!

And, just a little bit later that day, when I went outside to use the facilities and chase after some extremely evil squirrels (I don’t think that they were members of SNURFLES, though, but they might have been), I had my chance to parlay with the original scarlet creature whom I saw in the treetops of the Centralia City Dog Park, and whom I’d come to refer to in my own musings about it as “The Scarlet One.”

You will probably find this hard to believe, Dear Readers, but I had begun to doubt whether or not the creature I’d seen in the dog park was an agent of SNURFLES. Cardinals, as I mentioned, were nesting in the area, so I was questioning what I had thought I’d seen.

To be sure, an agent of SNURFLES spying on a meeting of PAWS from the treetops is something I’d expect from them. It fit their sneaky M.O., or modus operandi, or to my non-Latin speaking Readers, Mode of Operating. Not many pterodactyls are conversant in Latin, either; but then again, not many are Warrior Sleuths, either, like myself. In fact, I think I might be the only one!

Anyway, as I was saying, when I strolled outside and caught some evil squirrels attempting to rob acorns from the ground, as the squirrels hauled their furry little heinies up the oak tree and a nearby pine tree, that’s when I saw The Scarlet One again. It was perched one a low tree branch, almost, but not quite, within my reach. Of course, I could have manifested into my true shape, that of a pterodactyl, and then flown up to grab The Scarlet One; but, I figured that it was a messenger of the SNURFLES, and I decided it would be better to hear what it had to say, and then let it go back to the headquarters of SNURFLES, and to perhaps track it there. Knowing where the HQ of the SNURFLES was would be important knowledge to eventually bringing them all to justice.

“I’m Lily Quince, leader of PAWS. Who are you?” I roared softly, well, as softly as possible, for I didn’t want to risk having to go back inside the house until I’d learned more.

“Bwa-ack! Bwa-ack!” the Scarlet Macaw screeched, for that is what the creature was, a possible escapee from a pet store, zoo, circus, or maybe a stowaway on a cruise ship who had previously been involved in criminal activity in the Amazon Rainforest. Crime can happen anywhere, you know; rainforests can be (and often are) hotbeds of criminal activities.

“That’s not a very informative answer, whoever you are! Tell me who you are, and what do you want from me? Did SNURFLES send you?”

The Scarlet One bobbed its head up and down several times, by way of answering. Then, it said: “Bwa-ack! Frankie wants a cracker! Bwa-ack!”

I decided that The Scarlet One had to be speaking in code. But, what could it be meaning by its mysterious words? Was “cracker” code for information, perhaps? I was sensing that this Frankie fellow was trying to tell me something, give me some sort of information, or he wanted some, or both.

Before I could ask him to clarify himself, he spoke again:
“Bwa-ack! Warning, warning, danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

“I told you, Frankie, that my name is Lily, Lily Quince, though some of my friends call me Vic-tor-ia! Don’t ask me why; it’s a long story. The point is, my name isn’t ‘Will Robinson.’ I’m sure that whoever Will Robinson is, he’s a nice person; but I’m not him.”

But, whether he’d heard my words or not, I didn’t know until later, for when I looked up into the oak tree again, Frankie was gone. I’d missed my opportunity to follow The Scarlet One by probably mere seconds. I deduced that for whatever reason Frankie kept calling me “Will
Robinson,” he was likely attempting to warn me that I was getting too close to breaking this case wide open, just like a cracked Brazil nut, one of the foods Macaws (particularly Scarlet ones) love to eat as midnight snacks. I was used to living on the edge of danger, though. Danger wasn’t my middle name, but it was the middle name of my Great Aunt, Gertie Danger McPherson, so danger was definitely in my blood!

As far as I am concerned, I say that both squirrels and Macaws not only like to eat nuts, but they are nuts, generally not making much sense when you talk to them. Still, I couldn’t help but think that if The Scarlet One had just stayed a few minutes longer, he was on the verge of telling me something that was vitally important. Maybe I would have another chance to talk to Frankie. If he didn’t spill the beans, then I wouldn’t rule out using excessive force, and maybe even Barbecue Shake & Bake for Parrots.

When Celeste let me in the house after I politely pounded on the door, slamming into it with my entire body, she gave me a big hug and called me her best-est friend. I said, “No, you’re my best-est friend,” and licked her face for emphasis. Humans definitely have their faults, but sometimes, when they’re at their best, they are pretty good at comforting pterodactyls in their times of need. I was glad to have a friend like Celeste.

Chapter Three

Clare Sees Red

Things were pretty normal for a change over the next several days. After school, Celeste would often take me over to talk with the other members of PAWS, individually and collectively. Sometimes she had martial arts classes to go to after school, or had to do lots of homework or practice her Flag Line routines and her clarinet to prepare for Sectionals, but she was still able to devote plenty of quality stomach-scratching time to me, and take me on my rounds to conduct my bid-ness with my PAWS peeps.

But then, one Friday towards the end of September brought yet another surprise into my life. When Celeste and I came home from an important meeting with PAWS (it was a teacher in-service day so Celeste didn’t have to attend school), I heard a strangely familiar squawking sound coming from the basement of the house, where Clare kept various species of wildlife that she’d rescued until they got healthy enough to release into the wild again.Celeste ran down the stairs with me in her arms to investigate what the fuss was about. Scarlet feathers were drifting in the air, and littering the concrete floor, and in a huge metal barred cage at the left side of the room, there was an indignant, squawking, half-naked Frankie! Clare was standing by the front of the cage, trying to talk soothingly to the enraged Macaw to calm him, but to no avail. I kept roaring in anger that The Scarlet One had somehow tricked Celeste’s mom into bringing him right into our inner sanctum, our castle, and got her to sympathize with him.

“The big guy here, who calls himself ‘Frankie,’ is just molting, Celeste! You need to get Lily to shut up and stop her barking–it’s scaring this poor Macaw! He must have gone through a lot. I noticed him when I went to take the trash out, pitifully clinging to a tree limb, hardly able to flap his wings. First, though, I just saw red, the scarlet red of the poor guy’s feathers fluttering in the air and falling to the ground.”

After Celeste talked soothingly to me, telling me “It’s okay, you’re okay, Lily, it’s just a bird,” I calmed down, though I was still seething with anger inside. Frankie wasn’t calming down, though. “I know just what will get Frankie to settle down,” Clare said. She went over to a refrigerator that she kept there for the animals, and removed from it a container with a lid on it. She got a tablespoon from a drawer, took the lid off, and started feeding the contents to Frankie, who devoured the food as if he was starving. Then, she got a box from the cupboard and gave Frankie a couple of the crackers inside it, which the greedy bird also ate with gusto.

Clare had an inventive streak of her own, which resulted in even more millions for the Quince family. The food she’d feed Frankie initially was labeled “Clare’s Cuttlefish Chutney,” a spicy blend of cuttlefish bits to help parrots’ beak stay shiny and sharp, and a mixture of vegetable and fruit in chutney sauce. The motto on the container was: “Satisfies Even the Sauciest Parrot’s Palate!”

The crackers in the brightly-colored box with pictures of parrots and Macaws on it was called “Clare’s Exotic Bird Crackers.” Its motto? “Guaranteed to Please Even the Most Finicky Polly!” I’d like to take credit for having thought up these inventions and their mottoes, but Clare did it all on her own. I was proud of her, but I thought the last thing we should be doing is to encourage that freeloading bird Frankie from frequenting our family’s house. We should kick him out on his freaky, feathery butt!

Unfortunately, my feelings were not echoed by Clare nor Celeste. They kept “Ooohing!” and “Aaahing!” over “Poor widdle Fwankie.” and his extreme case of molting, or “Macaw pattern baldness,” or whatever politically correct turn of phrase you might want to describe his condition. I sort of liked referring to Frankie as being: “TFC,” or “Temporarily Flight Challenged,” or “FBN,” “Featherless By Nature.”

Celeste said I was just being catty, but I don’t know what she means by that. I told her that, being a pterodactyl, I like to eat small animals like cats. Maybe she was referring to that….
Celeste carried me back upstairs and into the house. I hoped that The Scarlet One would grow new feathers soon. It couldn’t happen too soon for me, because I wanted that dirty bird sent back to the wilds asap.

Celeste excitedly told her dad about Frankie. Quentin said that he knew, he already saw Frankie and he said: “He’s a pretty cool bird, isn’t he, even looking kind of strange, with half his feathers gone.”

“I mean,” he went on, now in my voice, as I’d taken over his mind, “He looks like a scrawny plucked chicken, and we need to get rid of him at our earliest possible convenience! He’s an obvious spy and he’s managed to infiltrate our house with the utmost ease! SNURFLES is making a mockery out of PAWS and our motto: “Be Ever Vigilant!”

“Lily,” Celeste said, “He’s just a bird. He’s an animal that came to us in his time of need, and we can’t just turn him away! We have to keep him here and take care of him at least until his feathers grow back! He may even be someone from another branch of PAWS, who was trying to warn you about a SNURFLES plot!”

“Celeste, Celeste, Celeste. Poor, naive Celeste,” I said. “Frankie really has you snowed, doesn’t he? Who else but a high ranking member of SNURFLES would dare to initiate such a bold plan to learn the Top Secret secrets of PAWS? You obviously just aren’t thinking very clearly!”

“You aren’t thinking clearly! Burn!” Celeste said. That was unbecoming of her. I resolved not to stop to the level of petty insults.

“Even if Frankie is a member of SNURFLES,” Celeste said, “what does it hurt for him to be here until he grows his feathers back? He might see that his enemies aren’t so bad and he may re-think SNURFLES plans for world domination.”

“They will never change their plans, Celeste! We’re talking about SNURFLES here, not someone trying to decide if she should buy a chocolate or strawberry triple-scoop ice cream cone, or a dozen oatmeal cookies versus a dozen chocolate chip cookies, or….I’m suddenly getting hungry. All the hard work I do fighting the forces of evil sure works up a powerful hunger, I tell you w-hut! And, I didn’t say ‘what’ like that because I’ve watched too many episodes of ‘King of the Hill,’so don’t even go there, girlfri-end!”

“Well, you know you can’t have chocolate. That’s not good for dogs, Lily!”
“That means it’s perfect for me, as I’m a pterodactyl, and not a dog! There, I logically ran rings around you, so nyaah!”

“No, you didn’t, you didn’t run rings around anything! You already have food in your bowl, eat that if you’re so hungry!” Celeste said.

“My, aren’t we touchy!” I said, then grumbled some more, and headed towards my food bowl. Even though it’s diamond encrusted, dog food is still dog food, no matter what type of bowl you put it in. Isn’t variety supposed to be the spice of life? That’s what I was looking for–just a little variety now and then, maybe a nice fudge-covered piece of chewy caramel nougat, or a…oh, what’s the use? The only way I would ever be able to get any of the “good stuff,” would involve underhanded, cunning scheming, a plan designed by a true mastermind, a plan..hey, wait! I’m a mastermind! I’m an expert at making cunning plans!

I have a minor CONFESSION to make: I have a sweet tooth. Technically, what I was contemplating was maybe not what an upstanding young law-abiding pterodactyl ought to be contemplating. But, my sweet tooth sometimes over-ruled my heart and my brain, and it would once in a blue moon get me in trouble despite my best intentions. To accomplish what I was considering would take the combined efforts of the entire PAWS team, but we would split up our ill-gotten gains evenly: I would get fifty percent, and they would get the other fifty percent to divide up amongst themselves. What could be more fair than that?

The plan was slowly developing in my mind. But, before I could put it into action, I had the more immediate problem of The Scarlet One to deal with. I hated the idea that SNURFLES had placed a mole in the form of a Macaw in our midst. But, I also knew Frankie couldn’t leave (unless he was carried out in a casket) on his own until he grew back his feathers. I wasn’t positive how long it took in general for molting birds to regrow their feathers, but I thought probably a long time, and I didn’t want to wait.

So, I came up with another plan, one so clever it simply had to work! Knowing that Celeste’s favorite gum was Sprint Spearmint Gum, and that when she was threw chewing it, she spit it into the trash can in her room, when she was busy watching the television in the livingroom I snuck stealthily into her room like the ninja that I was, and snagged a couple of her latest contributions she’d half-way wrapped in paper. I carried them in my mouth very daintily down the stairs to the basement, carefully and quietly. The gum still retained some of its flavor, and my mouth was watering, so I gave in to the temptation, and started chewing it. The door was partially open, and before you could say: “Jack Russell Terrier!” I was in the basement!

Now came the tricky part. There were low lights plugged into electrical sockets in the baseboards, which provided me with enough light to carry out my solo mission. I rapidly yanked the cloth that had been covering Frankie’s cage off with my massive and razor-sharp talons, and flung it to the floor. Next, I blew a humongous bubble with the gum, as big as I could make it, and it finally exploded, covering both Frankie and myself with gum. It hit and coated Frankie like there had been a bull’s eye painted on The Scarlet One (whose name, currently, should be perhaps The Bald One), though unfortunately, some also got plastered onto me.

I had to work quickly. Before the startled bird could get a single “Squawk!” out of his beak, I scooped together a bunch of his molted feathers and threw them at Frankie. A lot of them just sailed back to the floor, like colorful confetti; but, many of them stuck to the Macaw, and quite a lot of them got stuck on me. He then found his voice, and started squawking loudly enough to wake the dead!

I told him: “Shut up, you stupid bird–I’m only trying to help you!” but Frankie just squawked even louder.

“Bwa-ack! Bwa-ack!” The Scarlet One screeched. “Bad Lily! Dead meat! Dead Meat!” he screamed, as I was still trying to shush him.

“What’s going on?” Clare, Quentin, and Celeste were in the doorway, acting alarmed and looking at the scene before them in shock, with wide eyes. My ears went low, and I kind of slunk about. hey were behaving as if all of this was somehow my fault!

“Celeste,” Clare said, ” This is what can happen when you leave your gum around for Lily or the other animals to get a hold of! This is why I tell you to make sure you throw it away and don’t leave it on a table or the arm of the chair for her to snatch!”

“But mom,” Celeste argued, “I didn’t, I swear! I did throw it in the trash!”
“The gum didn’t just grow legs and walk out of the trash can on its own!” Clare said, looking as if she was seeing red.

“I thought you were becoming more responsible, Celeste!” Triple Q said. “No more gum for you for an entire week!”

I felt worse for having gotten Celeste into trouble than I would have if it was just myself who got yelled at. I tried to tell Clare and Quentin to punish me, that I was really the only one at fault, but they acted as if I was speaking gibberish.

“Let’s get you both cleaned up,” Clare said. She grabbed a big industrial-sized bottle of Clare’s Deep Cleansing Parrot Scrub Cream, “A Pirate’s Second Best Friend,” from the refrigerator. This was another idea she’d dreamed up and successfully marketed and which the Quinces had profited from. It was truly miraculous stuff, and though it was designed mainly for birds, and especially for ones that got trapped in oil spills and got coated with the gunky stuff, it was also good for removing a wide variety of other sticky substances. It also worked on dogs and pterodactyls, according to the label. Within a short time (but one which seemed to last an eternity to me), we were both cleaned.

“There you are, Frankie and Lily, as clean as you’ll both ever get, I guess!” she said, putting away the bottle and towels she’d used. “Too bad this will probably set your growing your feathers back a week or more, but at least you’re clean now!”

Wha-wha-what?” I thought to myself. My plans so rarely went wrong. I couldn’t understand it. But, this was not my first bird-related misadventure, and I doubted it would be my last. I still wanted to continue my attempts to get rid of Frankie, but I knew the most pressing thing on my “To Do,” list had now become seeking Celeste and trying to convince her to forgive me.

I went upstairs, and found her sitting on the couch doing her homework. She didn’t look at me, or say something like “Hello, Lily!” gleefully with a smile on her face and evident in her voice as she usually did. She just ignored me. I felt like I was about two inches tall. I jumped up onto the couch and laid down beside her, placing my head in her lap and sighing loudly. I looked up into her eyes. She had been trying to concentrate on her homework, but she couldn’t resist my sad, pterodactyl eyes gazing at her, and just had to look at me looking at her.

Quentin was sitting in his chair, reading, as usual. “Poor Lily!” he said. “You look almost as sad and tuckered out as Frankie!”

He really was not that bad of a guy. I just had to borrow his vocal chords again to explain to Celeste why I did what I did. “Celeste, I wasn’t trying to get you into trouble! I was only trying to help!” I said.

“Even though the stupid bird is an agent of SNURFLES. I’m more sure of that than ever before! But, I know the sooner Frankie re-grows his feathers, the sooner he can go, and leave me in peace, so why should I want to delay that from happening?”

“I can’t stay mad at you, Lily-Bear!” Celeste said, making me so happy it set my tail to wagging uncontrollably.

She added, “You were very bad, but I suppose your heart was in the right place.”

“I still think I could have done it, if I’d had a little more time and Frankie’s cooperation. I could have arranged those feathers just right, if I hadn’t been so rushed, and that bird-brain would be flying out the window by now! I, for one, wouldn’t be boo-hooing,” I said.

“How could one small dog–er, excuse me–pterodactyl–get into so much trouble?”

“When you work for PAWS, anything can happen at any time! And, Celeste, there’s something that you don’t know–The Scarlet One dared to threaten me! He said I was dead meat!”

“You probably misheard him. But, even if you didn’t, he was probably just mad .”

“Mad? Whatever could he have to be mad about?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“How about your waking him up from a sound sleep, getting gum all over him, and then throwing his old feathers at him and getting them stuck all over his body?”

“Oh, that!” I said. “I’m sure he’ll let bygones be bygones and forget all about that. The point is, he threatened my life!”

“You worry too much, Lily! Frankie’s locked in his cage, so even if he is a member of SNURFLES and even if he threatened you and you’re not being paranoid (that’s a big ‘if’), he can’t get at you where he is, so you’re safe!”

Somehow, though, Celeste’s words did little to reassure me. She hadn’t been there to hear the sheer menace in that Macaw’s voice.

Lily, Unleashed presents a bold and stunning vision of an alternative world where animals run the show. Though aimed at kids, Douglas Cobb’s groundbreaking debut effort is sure to resonate with adults as well, telling its tale through the eyes of our furry friends who seem more human than most people. Cobb picks up where Richard Adams left off in his brilliant Watership Down, and the result is nothing short of a stellar storytelling with heart and soul.

–Jon Land, bestselling author of Strong at the Break

(Thanks, Jon–you’re a true class individual, and an excellent author of page-turning thrillers!)

BestSellersWorld.com is a fantastic source of book reviews. The owner/reviewer of the site, and or MysteriesGalore.com, recently read/reviewed my ebook, Lily Unleashed, the first book of The Case Files of Lily and PAWS. To read her review, you can go to Amazon.com, and see it where my ebook is being currently sold for $2.99 (get it in time for Christmas), or read her review at her site here. You can see many more excellent reviews at both of her sites and stock up on even more Christmas gifts for the book lovers (and ebook lovers) in your family! Check out her site in the near future, also, where a review of the sequel, Lily and PAWS: The Ghosts of Summer, will appear!

Just this past December, the last month of 2011, I published two ebooks in a series of MG/YA novels. The first is Lily, Unleashed, at only a mere $2.99 for over sixty-five thousand words of reading enjoyment; and the second one is Lily and PAWS: The Ghosts of Summer, retailing for less than a meal at Mickey D’s, a paltry $2.99! Get ’em both, for less than the price of a sandwich at Subway, plus a bag o’ chips and soft drink! I truly hope you get the opportunity to read both books, and enjoy them.

What are they about? The first book, Lily, Unleashed, is told in the first-person by Lily Elizabeth Quince, a somewhat paranoid (but with good reason) terrier/pterodactyl. She is the leader of the crime-fighting organization, PAWS (Private Army of Warrior Sleuths). The other members of PAWS are Lucy Marmoset Higgins (a Great Dane/orangutan), Prince Alphonse Saed (a miniature dachsund/Mountain Lion) and Fuzzy Wally MacGee (perhaps the coolest but most mentally-challenged of them all–he’s a Chinese Crested/rhino). Twisted? Yes, most definitely–but funny and heart-warming, as well.

Lily, Celeste, and the other members of PAWS fight against the Dangers of Strangers and crime in all of it’s forms, especially their arch-enemies, the Scarlet SNURFLES (Super Nefarious Union of Rascals Formidably Linked in Everlasting Solidarity). It is headed by the Scarlet Macaw, Frankie Sinister. They also battle against the Scarlet Mafia, which is led by the Scarlet Macaw Benny the Beak. Other foes they face are the aliens known as the Greys, the cute but evil red panda, General Yao Xing, and the head of the Guild of Assassins, the Egyptian red fox known as Omar Khalid Ali.

Oh, and Celeste’s parents are both multi-millionaire inventors of odd but useful items such as Melon Bottom Jeans. They live in the fictional city of 350,000, Centralia, Arkansas, a very strange city, indeed. There are references to other cities in Arkansas, such as Paris, though there are many,many more references in Lily and PAWS: The Ghosts of Summer. Her father is Quentin Quintilius Quince, and Lily often calls him simply Triple Q. Celeste’s mother is Clare, and she is, among other things, a wild life specialist and an inventor of animal care products such as parrot shampoo and doggie treats.

Lily and PAWS: The Ghosts of Summer is the sequel. It’s shorter, somewhat, but that’s because it takes place only over the course of a summer, whereas Lily, Unleashed, takes place over an entire year’s time frame. While Lily and PAWS: The Ghosts of Summer is still humorous, it also has many dramatic and chilling moments (they both do, but The Ghosts of Summer has even more than the first book).

Lily and PAWS are again plagued by the crimes and troubles of Frankie and the Scarlet SNURFLES. This time, Frankie has a scheme to convince everyone that he has a solution to the energy crisis: convert ghosts into an energy source. The ghost of the famous “Bandit Queen,” Belle Starr asks Lily and Celeste for help in saving the ghosts of Arkansas, and, in doing so, also save the living. That’s because Frankie’s real intention is to use the ectoplasmic energy of the ghosts to power a Doomsday weapon.

I did a lot of research on the history and haunted locations of Arkansas, my adopted state, while writing this sequel. I was surprised at how many truly haunted places there are in the state, and I learned quite a bit about Arkansas’ history I hadn’t known before. Though I touch on the issue of slavery, and mention the famous Civil War Battle of Pea Ridge, I felt that history books already have educated people about slavery and how terrible is was, so I would get into other aspects about the history of Arkansas that weren’t as well known.

In the first book, Lily, Unleashed, for instance, I incorporate into the plot the influence of immigrants such as the Irish-Americans, and the fact that the Spanish conquistadors traveled through Arkansas. They even mined silver and gold here, though the state is not particularly known for having large deposits of either. They noticed Native Americans wearing earrings and other baubles made from these precious metals, and took over some Indian mines here.

I had a load of fun writing both of these first two novels in my series The Case Files of Lily and PAWS, and I hope you have fun reading them at Amazon’s Kindle store! I tried to incorporate tons of pop and cultural refernces in them, also, like the Beatles, Johnny Cash, Dr. Phil, Lady Gaga, Adele, U2, Justin Beiber, Justin Timberlake, Johnny Depp, and many, many more. I did so in the spirit of tryingt o instill as much light-hearted humor as possible into these novels. Please check them out, write reviews of them at Amazon and your own blogs/Facebook pages, and pass on word of these novels to your family & friends!

I look forward to reading the reviews and your comments, and I will try to update this blog at least twice a week, though what with my day job and my writing, and spending quality time with my family, that might prove difficult to do some weeks.